Sparkle

She’d looked nervous as a newborn colt when she’d first stepped in. Shed a dripping rain jacket at the door, dropped it. She was such a character, Bren thought. A full-grown ragamuffin. Gorgeous hair, all red and gold and blond, thick and glossy—but she wore it shaggy and rumpled, washed and dried as if it were polyester. The clothes appeared to be rejects from a rag bag—the jeans were too tight in the behind, dirty in the knees, thready at the hems; the flannel shirt was twice too big for her frame.

Poppy’s face fascinated her the most, though. Her dark eyes were bright with intelligence and sassy humor. She had a long, wide mouth, skin softer than a baby’s. The nose took up too much space. So did the chin. But there were so many contradictions in that face, so much character. Poppy seemed shamelessly irreverent, hopelessly blunt…so much her own woman, the way Bren had always wanted to be herself. Everything about Poppy seemed to capitalize a strong woman, unafraid to fight for whatever mattered to her…yet that essential gutsiness was shadowed by something else. Anger, Bren was almost sure.

Somewhere inside that brash, artsy package was a lot of anger at something. The way she walked, the way she moved, Poppy always seemed braced for someone to cut her or hurt her—and ready to lash out when and if anyone tried.

“Pink? You gotta be kidding me,” Poppy said when she saw the walls. She pushed out of her wet shoes, tromped around barefoot.

Bren hadn’t felt comfortable at baldly opening cupboards and drawers, but sheesh, as long as Poppy was doing it, she indulged in her curiosity, too. “Apparently it was rented furnished.”

“You guessing that by the crappy furniture?” Poppy said wryly. “Yeah, I’d guess the same thing. Thinking about an old lady trying to ease her tired bones on a cheap futon kind of makes me sick.” She spun around. “Did you see this?”

Bren nodded. She’d already noticed the picture on the far wall. It wasn’t a good print or even a poster. Just a picture cut out from a magazine of a stone hearth with a blazing fire. It put a lump in Bren’s throat. “Maude Rose never had the warmth of a real fireplace, I’m guessing.”

“Everything around this damn place makes me think she was so damn lonely that I’d like to hit someone. Pardon my French.” Poppy opened a kitchen cupboard. Bren came up behind her to view the contents. The two women exchanged glances.

The shelf held two plates, two cups, two saucers—all cheap, chipped pottery. But also on the shelf sat a half-used candle, rose-scented.

“Damn it,” Poppy said again.

Bren didn’t say it, but she felt the same way. The candle still had a whiff of that soft, vulnerable scent. Again she hurt for the old woman’s loneliness. For something inside Maude Rose that so few had ever seen. A softness. A yearning for something pretty, something gentle, something feminine.

“I’ve got to quit saying damn it around you,” Poppy grumped. “I think it’s because I know you’re a pastor’s wife. I mean, I swear. But not every two seconds.”

“It’s all right.”

Poppy started spinning around again. “Pretty obvious the furniture comes with the place. But I don’t think we should rent this place out—or let anyone else see it—until we’ve taken out some things. Like the candle. And the picture. And whatever else we find that belonged to Maude Rose that’s…”

“Personal.” Bren nodded. She shuffled through a handful of books on the stand by the TV. Dilbert. Garfield. Not reading books, just cartoons. On a wall shelf, she found records. Not CDs or tapes but old records—the kind that had to be played on a turntable. Only there was no turntable. Just the big, black disks. She read the labels to Poppy. “Night and Day, Frank Sinatra. Who’s Montavani?”

“Don’t know.”

“Cal Tjader. Ella Fitzgerald. Miles Davis. Wes Montgomery.” Bren recognized some of the names, not all. “I’d hate to think she loved this music and then had no way to play it.”

“Bren?”

“What?”

Poppy stood in the doorway of the bathroom. “I think we need a glass of wine. Or beer.”

“Oh, I can’t sta—” Bren clipped off her knee-jerk response. It must be the stranger living in her life that said, “Actually, I can stay for a while. And I think a little drink’s a good idea. Hmm, I’m trying to think of the closest place that might sell a bottle of wine—”

“Manny’s Bar. Maude Rose’s hangout. Which seems fitting. I’ll spring for it.”

By the time Poppy returned, she was soaked all over again, laughing at what a rotten, blustery night the storm had turned into. By then, Bren had filled a couple of grocery bags with things of Maude Rose’s. She wasn’t sure what to do with them but left them for Poppy to see so they could decide together.

“I guess I should have asked if you’d rather have a soda instead of something alcoholic,” Poppy said.

“You know,” Bren said mildly, “just because I’m married to a minister doesn’t mean that I don’t drink, don’t swear or can’t have a bitchy mood just like anyone else.”

“You just said bitchy.”

“Yes.” Bren glanced out the window. “And I see quite a bit of lightning, but none of the lightning bolts seemed to have shot me down, so I guess God must be in a forgiving mood today.”

Poppy squinted at her. “Was that a joke?”

“Oh, no. I never joke about God shooting me down with lightning bolts.”

Apparently that kind of teasing was what it took for Poppy to relax around her. Contrary to Bren’s claim, she really didn’t drink—at least, not normally. But when she started to sip that first glass, it seemed the right thing to do. It wasn’t that easy for her to relax around Poppy any more than the other way around. Slowly, though, they seemed to be finding their way around each other.

“So you left your jewels with Ruby,” Poppy said. “Mine, now, they’re still in my fridge.”

“Your refrigerator! You can’t be serious.”

“Can you imagine a thief opening the fridge for anything to steal? Besides which, I’ve just been so darn busy. I’ll do something serious as soon as I can catch some free time. Anyway, the point is, do you know what you’re going to do with your side of the loot?”

“No. Not yet.” She took another sip of wine, let the dry taste swirl on her tongue. “How about you? When you get that free time…do you have some ideas what you’re going to do with the money?”

Poppy was still opening and closing things as she drank, and so far she’d finished three glasses compared to Bren’s first three sips. “You know, my first thought on this place is just to find someone who needs a place. A kid graduating from high school, first job kind of thing. Someone wanting to live independent. Or needing to. But someone needing something cheap.”

“A girl, not a guy,” Bren said.

Poppy nodded immediately. “Yeah. I know we shouldn’t discriminate, but…”

“But it’d feel good to do something for a girl who needed help,” Bren added thoughtfully. “From what Cal Asher said, Maude had enough funds in the kitty to pay for several more months’ rent. So it wouldn’t cost us to hold on to the place for a while. Give us the time to find the right person.”

“I’m not sure how to guess who Maude Rose might have wanted here. Except…a girl who needs a safety net.”

“Yeah. And a girl who needs a little kindness passed along.” Bren found it astounding how easily they were talking about this. But she’d definitely noticed how Poppy had initially ducked the question of her inheritance. Before she could ask her again, though, Poppy motioned her closer.

“Bren! Look what I found!” Poppy had just topped her third glass—again—when she sloshed it on the scarred plastic table. Apparently she’d spotted something under an upholstered chair, because suddenly she knelt down and reached deep under there. She emerged with an old wrinkle-edged cigar box.

“Um, doesn’t look like much of a treasure. Maybe if you smoked,” Bren said doubtfully.

Poppy rolled her eyes. “It’s not about smoking, you silly. Cigar boxes are for hiding treasures.”

“This is a rule where?” Bren asked wryly, but they both bent over the box to view the contents. Neither touched. They just looked. There was a dried-up daisy. A newspaper with its name cut off, just a scrap of yellowed paper with the cutout date of November 7, 1984. A beach shell, broken. A photo of a couple from the ’40s, judging from their clothes, but it was so faded and crackled it was hard to tell. Another photo of a young man—skinny, scrawny, standing by a motorcycle, looking cockily as if he owned the world.

Slowly Bren said, “You’re right. They are treasures.”

“Impossible to guess what they meant to her.”

“No way to know,” Bren agreed.

“I guess we should throw it all away.”

“I guess we should. What else could we do with it anyway?” Yet Bren looked at Poppy’s face, sighed and said, “Okay, let’s just put it back under the chair for now. We’ll throw it away. Eventually.”

“I know we will.” Poppy put on her tough, defensive face. “Hell, how stupid to be sentimental about stuff like that. What difference could it possibly make now?”

“You’re so right,” Bren murmured. She tried to look away from Poppy, but for that instant—whether Poppy knew it or not—her eyes glistened when she saw that cheap dried flower. So had Bren’s. But then, Bren had no illusions about herself that she was tough. “Hey, Poppy…I didn’t mean to pry before. You don’t have to tell me what you plan to do with your jewels. I was just making conversation.”

“Hey, I wasn’t ducking it.”

She was, but Bren wasn’t about to call her on it. She watched Poppy toss back the rest of her wine. The Ms. Tough expression was back in place.

“I want to have my face fixed,” she said bluntly.

“Your face? What’s wrong with your face?”

Poppy rolled her eyes again. “Come on. It’s obvious. My whole life, I’ve been butt-ugly. But I always thought I just had to live with it. Now suddenly I don’t have to. And it’s not as if I need the money for anything else.” She scowled at Bren. “You don’t approve.”

“It’s not up to me to approve or disapprove.”

“But you think it’s vain. Frivolous. A dumb thing to do with the money.”

“I never said that,” Bren defended herself.

“You didn’t have to. It’s all over your expression. But you never had to live with a face like this. You don’t have my history. You don’t even know me—”

Bren said quickly, “Poppy, I’m sorry if I offended you. Or if you felt I was judging you. You just took me by surprise, that’s all. I had no idea what you were going to say.”

But Poppy closed down tighter than a threatened clam. She corked the wine, put attitude in her shoulders, carted her glass to the sink. She was obviously making moves toward leaving. “So what about you, anyway? What’d your husband say when you told him about your windfall?”

Now it was Bren’s turn to fall silent. Poppy turned. “Bren?”

Bren punched out cheerfully, “I haven’t gotten around to telling him yet.” It was her turn to leap to her feet. She aimed for the sink, figuring she’d wash both glasses. Oh, and check the contents of the refrigerator. Neither of them had looked inside to see if there was food that needed throwing out.

Poppy hadn’t moved. Was still staring at her. “Well, hell. I didn’t mean to ask some heavy, loaded question.”

“It isn’t a loaded question. It’s just a little different circumstance. It’s hard to explain.”

“No need to strain yourself. It’s none of my business.”

“I’m going to tell him. He’ll be really happy. I mean, who wouldn’t at such an extraordinary surprise—”

“Uh-huh. That’s why you didn’t tell him immediately, right? Because he’d be so happy.”

“It’s hard to explain,” Bren repeated uncomfortably.

They both left at the same time. Both had keys, lifted a hand to lock the door at the same moment. Went to take the stairs down at the same moment. Hesitated at the same moment before taking off in the pouring rain in opposite directions.

Bren couldn’t stop thinking how nice it had been between them for a while. Just talking together, more easily than either could ever have expected. It was as if the bond of Maude Rose had somehow paved the way for a friendship between them. They shared a secret. A secret that seemed to open the doors to communicating, talking about things they wouldn’t or couldn’t normally.

But that door had sure slammed shut fast.

Bren was still shaking her head—who could ever, would ever, guess that a woman who dressed as ragamuffinlike as Poppy would want plastic surgery? That vanity or looks was even a thought in her head?

And for herself…well, obviously she couldn’t just tell Poppy about her marriage. You couldn’t explain something like that in a single sentence or a couple of seconds.

Heckapeck. Bren had been trying for days, weeks and now months to explain to herself what the Sam Hill was going wrong between her and Charles. If she couldn’t figure it out herself, how on earth could she tell a stranger?

CHAPTER 4

A week from Thursday, Poppy came to work with her internal engine on rev. She’d been to a plastic surgeon in D.C. Actually, she’d seen a second one in Arlington, as well. And as soon as she’d poured a mug of sludge from the community caffeine pot, she tracked down Web.

She knew he’d be busy, just wanted to pin him down to a quick conversation later. It wasn’t as if they didn’t pass each other a zillion times during the average workday, but she didn’t want to discuss arrangements in public.

She heard his voice in exam room one and jogged there—yet ended up standing in the doorway without saying a word. Web was with a gorgeous golden retriever—and the retriever’s owner.

Pauline was thirty-something, buxom and brunette, pretty enough if you went for the poured-in-jeans type, and was batting her eyelashes at Web as if they were lethal weapons. Poppy had all she could do not to laugh.

All the women went for Web. He couldn’t help looking like a hunk, but it was still fun to watch an unwitting Roman being circled by a determined lioness. All Web had to do was smile at a female—any age, zero or ninety, and pretty words seemed to promptly spew from the woman’s mouth like bubbly sea foam.

Web, turning to examine the retriever’s ears, caught sight of her in the doorway and shot her a please-God-save-me! look. Poppy just heartlessly grinned. Maybe he could get the golden retriever to rescue him, assuming the dog wasn’t female and didn’t fall head over heels, too.

She finally caught up with him at lunch, more by chance than plan. Web usually took off at noon, but he had a patient coming out of surgery. Mrs. Bartholomew’s cat. The cat would have been just fine in the recovery cage, but Web was Web. Took better care of people’s pets than they did.

More to the point, about the same second Poppy remembered there was cold pizza in the lab fridge, so did he. Seeing him gave her the excuse to grouch about her last customer. A cocker. The owner only came to her because no one else in a three-county radius would handle the spoiled little snapper.

“But it’s not that,” Poppy groused. “The dog has every right to snarl and growl when it’s miserable. It’s just that I don’t get why they insist on owning a cocker when both of them like to tromp through the woods. It’s just not fair. She always comes back full of prickers and burrs, and you know how cocker fur is to brush…”

Web pretended to listen to this rant—he’d heard it all before—as he helped himself to his share of the cold pizza, the part with the mushrooms. Both dived for the stash of Dr. Pepper. Rain started dribbling down the windows. A serious storm was coming in fast, judging by the darkening sky. Poppy reached up behind her to flick on the overhead.

The so-called break room was really the lab. Blood tests and X-rays and other tests were isolated in one section, but the sink and dishwasher functioned for both. A microwave made it easier to eat inside on bad-weather days, and the cot-bed was used for anyone who didn’t feel good—or for Web when he was spending the night for a favorite patient, which, of course, he’d never admit to on his deathbed. The closet had lab coats and at least one change of clothes for anybody who needed them—primarily Web and her. A critical drawer to the left of the sink was reserved for life essentials: Heath bars, jelly beans, butterscotch buttons.

“So did you survive the soccer mom this morning with your virtue intact?”

“The soccer mom?”

“Don’t waste your breath playing innocent with me. You know I mean the one with the size-eight jeans squeezed on a size-twelve ass. The one with the retriever.” Poppy rose up yet again to reach for napkins, which neither of them ever seemed to remember before they dived into food.

“Pauline. And, hey, you saw I needed help. How come you took off?”

“Because she’s cute. And God knows she worships the ground you walk on. I thought you could use a little hero worship this morning. And it’s been a while since you’ve succumbed…I thought maybe you needed to get laid.”

Web sighed. And chomped down on more pizza. “You know way, way too much about my private life. Or you think you do.”

“What, was that a rash assumption? You don’t need to get laid?” she asked innocently.

“Not to or by Pauline. No.” For an instant she caught the oddest glint of light in his eyes. But it was probably just a reflection. The window view of the Shenandoah Mountains in the distance suddenly showed a scissor of heavy-duty lightning. “I don’t need to be hooked up with any more divorcées—or nondivorcées, for that matter—who think I’ve got money.”

“I hate to tell you this, cookie, but it was never your money drawing the girls. It’s your adorable butt.”

Web wasn’t born yesterday. He put up with so much and then shoveled it back. “You have a cute butt, too, but I don’t see you running around getting either laid—or married—all the time.”

She laughed, thinking that was just the thing about Web—why they worked together so well, why they talked together so easily. She’d been hurt in her relationships. He’d been hurt in his. The reasons for their respective disastrous personal lives were entirely different, but the point was that they could easily tease each other without fear of it being taken the wrong way.

Web was too good-looking to notice a woman with her physical appearance, besides, making it even easier to banter from their respective sides of the gender fence. After two divorces, Web was so antimarriage he might as well wear a sign. And she’d had it with men who assumed it was okay to treat her ugly just because she physically was.

“Hey.” That second piece of pizza had taken the edge off. Web was still diving in. A good time for her to bring up more serious subjects. “I need to ask you something.”

“Sure. Shoot.” Although he glanced at her warily. “You want me to haul in wood for your fireplace this winter, right?”

“No. Well, yes. But this is a little more serious. I need some time off.”

“You’re telling me this why? Your schedule is totally up to you. You sure don’t need my permission.”

“I know that, but…I need a little help.” Her tangle with the cocker had left her pale yellow sweatshirt fringed with cinnamon hair. Web’s theory was the same as hers, that a meal without animal hair would be like Thanksgiving without turkey—too unnatural to consider. But just once in a blue moon she’d like to stay clean for just a few hours. “I’m going to have a little surgery done. Nothing huge, but…I’m going to need a couple weeks off from work. And I’ll actually not be home for about three days. That’s the time when I’m worried about Edward—”

“That damned rabbit?”

“Edward is not a damned rabbit. He just has a little problem with anxiety attacks. You would, too, if a human had practically burned off your behind. But the problem is that no one can seem to feed him but me. And, I have to believe, you. And then there’s Snickers.”

“You don’t still have that cat,” Web said positively.

“Don’t you start on me, cookie. I couldn’t take him to the shelter. Who would ever adopt her? She’s blind in one eye and doesn’t have a nose. She’s almost beyond ugly.”

“When she first came in after the accident, you could have listened to me. We could have made the intelligent choice and put her to sleep.”

“You talk real big,” she said darkly, “but wasn’t it just last month you took in that scruffy, mangy, derelict-looking mutt—”

“Now wait a minute. That’s completely different. I’ll find a home for Blue. He just needs to be more recovered…” Web seemed to shake himself. They’d been down this conversational road dozens of times. Which she knew, and which was why she’d started it, to distract him. “Let’s backtrack five miles. You know I’ll take care of your godforsaken rejects, just like you’d take care of mine. So forget that. What’s this surgery about?”

“Just a minor procedure.” She glanced at the clock, then popped to her feet.

“Don’t give me that shit. What are you having the surgery for? You need someone to be there?”

“No, honestly. You know I have a dad and two brothers. They’d smother me with help if I needed it—and most of the time when I don’t.” She squished a little dish soap in the sink. There were only a handful of dishes to clean up, but too little for the dishwasher, and it was a sacred rule in the lab to leave no messes. “That’s why I asked you to help with the critters. I’d just as soon stay under my family’s radar. I don’t want them worried. Nothing to worry about.”

He scooped up the napkins and paper plates, suddenly quiet, as if he were making his mind up whether to change subjects. “You haven’t said anything about your crazy inheritance in a few days.”

“Well, I told you about meeting up with Bren Price. We’re night and day in personality, that’s for sure. But we’ll get along as far as figuring what to do with Maude Rose’s old place. And as far as the jewelry…”

Web was the only person she’d told about the legacy. Initially she thought she’d go with Maude Rose’s advice, enjoy the privacy of no one knowing about her nest egg. But Web was the exception. She trusted him. After working together for four years, she knew she could.

She trusted her brothers and dad, too, of course, but it wasn’t the same. Tell them anything, and for the next five hours she’d hear nothing but heated advice and orders and discussion. Web would just let her be. He was always good as a sounding block, but besides their mutual teasing, he never interfered in anything she did—any more than she would in his life.

“Ruby still hasn’t come up with a written appraisal, but he must have called a half dozen times. It’s kind of funny, really. I think he’s shook up about doing this right, wants to be sure he keeps us informed every inch of the way. He’s far more worried than either Bren or me.”

“Doesn’t sound like he’s used to handling gems like that.”

“He isn’t. He keeps saying. But he’s honest. That’s all that really matters. Even if we don’t have the appraisals down in ink yet, he’s given us both clear pictures of what the pieces are worth. And Ruby being Ruby, I know what he’s told us is conservative.” She rinsed the last dishes and then grabbed a cloth to wipe off the table—then saw Web had beaten her to it. “It’s just still hard to believe this is real. That a total stranger would suddenly give me something out of the blue. Especially something as overwhelming as this.”

“Every once in a while the human race comes through and does something decent.”

“I know, I know. But I had no idea she knew who I was.” She shook her head, then spun around to glance at the clock again. Their hips bumped at the sink. He glanced at her, but she was no more concerned by the physical contact than he was. The time, she saw, was two minutes to one. She still had to pee and wash her hands before the next client came in.

Web, though, seemed to amble right in front of the door and then park himself. “Okay, so we’ve covered that waterfront. Now back to the main event. What’s the surgery for, Poppy?”